We're all familiar with the data deluge, and the need to store and analyze exponential data

growth is driving storage manufacturers to provide new technologies to keep that data
flowing. According to IDC estimates, the amount of data stored in the world's computer
systems is doubling every two years, and is likely to continue increasing at that rate into the
next decade.
In order to deal with that data volume, manufacturers are looking for ways to increase
storage density, or to store more information in less space.
Another key factor is Moore's Law. Back in 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore observed
that the number of components per integrated circuit was doubling every two years. This
means that processors were getting about twice as fast every two years, and the law
continues to hold true to this day.
However, as CPUs have gotten faster, storage hasn't always kept up. With storage becoming
a bottleneck, manufacturers are also looking for ways to increase performance in order to
keep pace with Moore's Law.
9 Emerging Storage Technologies To Watch

Emerging trends and the outlook for data storage in the future
Emerging technologies like quantum storage, DNA data storage, and holographic storage are
causing a major upheaval in the data storage sector. These advancements offer never-
before-seen capabilities, improved security, and cutting-edge preservation techniques.
Simultaneously, machine learning and artificial intelligence are being incorporated into
storage systems to enhance their accessibility and efficiency. In the middle of tremendous
growth, it is crucial to take sustainability and environmental implications into account,
making sure that moral behavior determines the future course of data storage. Let’s
examine the figure to identify the emerging trends.
Emerging trends and the future of data storage

Fig: 1, illustrates upcoming trends in data storage. Let’s continue to learn more
specific information about the trends.

Storage-as-a-Service: Storage-as-a-Service offers high-performing, adaptable,

and reliable storage options. It supports trends like software-defined storage,
hybrid multi-cloud storage, and cyber-resilient storage by giving businesses
access to cutting-edge storage technology without having to make significant
upfront investments. This method makes virtualization and data center changes
more effective.
Multi- cloud storage: Multi-cloud storage is one significant new trend in data
storage for the future. This method entails managing and storing data by
leveraging the services of several cloud providers. The goal of multi-cloud
storage is to improve data availability, flexibility, and redundancy. By utilizing the
distinct advantages of various cloud services, this approach also enables
enterprises to maximize efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Multi-cloud storage is
anticipated to be crucial in influencing the future of data storage as the need for
scalable and reliable storage solutions increases.
Hybrid cloud storage: Hybrid cloud storage which combines cloud storage with
on-premises storage infrastructure is anticipated to gain popularity. By using this
method, businesses may take use of the advantages of both private and public
cloud storage, tailoring their storage plans to meet the needs of sensitive data,
performance standards, and budgetary constraints. Enterprises uses a hybrid
cloud storage strategy, they may manage their data more freely and can take
advantage of the security and control provided by local infrastructure by storing
sensitive or important data on-site.
Software-Defined Storage (SDS): The growing use of SDS is yet another
important development. SDS is a storage architecture that divides the
underlying hardware infrastructure from the software layer that is in charge of
managing storage resources. More scalability, flexibility, and efficiency in the
management and utilization of storage resources are made possible by this
abstraction.
SDS offers a more flexible and economical option by enabling enterprises to
leverage commodity hardware and abstract storage management features into
software. This is consistent with the industry’s wider move in many IT sectors
toward software-defined methodologies. Businesses can use SDS to more
dynamically modify their storage infrastructure in response to changing
requirements, which will help create a more responsive and effective data
storage environment down the road.

Edge computing and Edge Storage: Edge computing has become more popular
due to the increase in Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the need for
immediate data processing. Edge storage is becoming more and more popular. It
stores and processes data closer to the source. The benefits of this blog include
lower latency, faster decision-making, lower costs, and better overall
performance.

Enterprises can reduce data transfer latency to centralized cloud storage by

implementing edge storage, resulting in quicker access and analysis. Edge
storage also reduces the amount of data that is transferred to the cloud, which
lowers expenses and bandwidth needs. This is especially helpful for managing
large amounts of data created by the Internet of Things.
DNA Data Storage: By utilizing the inherent information-storing capabilities of
DNA molecules, this novel approach explores the encoding of digital data into
DNA sequences. The possibility for very high-density DNA data storage holds
promise for compact and long-term data retention.
Quantum Storage: Quantum storage makes use of the concepts of quantum
physics to store data using quantum bits, or qubits. The quantum properties of
superposition may enable much faster and more secure data transmission and
storage.
AI/ML Optimization: By incorporating machine learning and artificial
intelligence into data storage systems, intelligent data management is made
feasible. By predicting consumption patterns, allocating storage optimally, and
enhancing system performance, these technologies increase efficiency.

Challenges and opportunities ahead

Technology Challenges:
Maintaining up with the exponential growth in data is rather challenging.
Developing storage solutions that can efficiently manage ever-increasing data
quantities is imperative. The need to overcome physical constraints like
downsizing and the requirement for faster data transfer rates present constant
challenges for storage system development.
Privacy and Security Issues:
As data grows, it is critical to have strong security mechanisms in place to
safeguard sensitive data. Encryption technology implementation and potential
vulnerability management are ongoing concerns. Completing storage solutions
becomes more difficult when juggling privacy considerations, regulatory
compliance, and the need for data accessibility.
Addressing costs:
Developing and implementing advanced storage systems usually involves large
investments in R&D, development, and infrastructure. An issue that both
manufacturers and consumers must deal with is finding a balance between
affordability and innovation.
Harmonization and Interoperability:
The variety of storage methods makes it difficult to achieve smooth
standardization and compatibility. A coherent storage ecosystem depends on the
ability of disparate systems to exchange information and communicate with one
another. Setting industry-wide standards can be difficult because of the speed at
which technology is developing and the disparate interests of various
stakeholders.
Effect on the Environment:
Concern over data storage facilities’ energy usage is on the rise. Two important
difficulties are reducing the carbon footprint of data storage operations and
creating ecologically sustainable storage systems.
Reducing the environmental impact of data storage requires addressing the
electronic trash produced by outmoded storage methods and supporting
recycling programs.
Opportunities :
Research and Innovation: The difficulties associated with data storage offer
chances for ongoing innovation and study. Innovations in storage capacity,
speed, and efficiency can result from investing in new technologies and
processes.
Integration of AI and Analytics: Data storage systems can benefit from predictive
maintenance, automated data management, and better decision-making based
on stored information when artificial intelligence and analytics are integrated.
Standardization: Standardized storage solutions can be created through industry
players working together. Data management across many platforms can be
made simpler by establishing common protocols and interoperability standards.
Eco-friendly Technologies: Green storage technology development is made
possible by addressing environmental issues. A sustainable future for data
storage is facilitated by investments in eco-friendly materials, renewable energy
sources, and energy-efficient technologies.
Explore the Future of Data Storage Technologies | by Calsoft Inc. | Medium
Conclusion
That wraps up our list of the top five data storage trends to watch over the next three years.
The sector is developing high-tech storage options and security measures that aim to help
businesses maximize the value of their data. AI options and automation tools are emerging
as well. For many organizations, this is the only way IT leaders will be able to successfully
manage this new workload.
However, at least two main hurdles remain: budgetary restrictions and environmental
concerns. As the volume of data continues to grow, watch for companies to strike a balance
between the business value of data and these future costs.
IT leaders are dealing with more data than ever before. And the volume keeps
increasing every day.
How can enterprises safely store this massive amount of data, but also maintain
accessibility for employees?
It’s not an easy problem to solve, but there are many breakthroughs on the
horizon that are set to disrupt the industry in these coming months.
Read this list of five trends to learn about recent developments in the data
storage industry.
1. Scientific Progress Could Finally Make DNA Data Storage Feasible
Storing data on DNA molecules is an emerging technology trend in 2024.

Searches for “DNA storage” over 10 years.

The DNA data storage market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 65.8% through
2028.
While computers understand binary code, DNA understands a four-letter code.

For DNA data storage, the data is first coded in ACGT sequences and then
linked to the DNA.
The specific order and sequences of those four letters form the basic building
blocks of all life. And, scientists have figured out how to write computer code in
DNA code.
There are multiple benefits of DNA storage: capacity, life span, and sustainability
are just a few.
That said, increased capacity is the main reason that DNA data storage is
appealing.
The world is predicted to have 175 ZB of data by 2025. That’s nearly a 3x
increase over 2020 and a 5x increase over 2018.
Where can that massive amount of data go? Many tech leaders say the future is
in DNA storage.
For example, DNA could store all of Facebook’s data in the space of half a poppy
seed.
A coffee mug could store all of the world’s data.
Another advantage of DNA-based storage is its stability.
DNA will never degrade. If kept dry and cool, the files can last hundreds of
thousands of years.
One of the main issues that’s held this trend back is cost.
With current DNA technology, it costs about $3,500 to synthesize 1 megabyte of
data.

The cost of synthesis has long been the main problem associated with DNA
data storage.
However, research is ongoing and some say that the cost could go down to $100
per terabyte of data by the end of 2024.
Another issue is the speed of writing DNA.
The long-held record speed was 200 MB per day. However, in late 2021,
researchers boosted that to 20 GB per day.
That’s still substantially slower than the speed to write to tape: 1,440 GB per
hour.
Catalog is a Boston-based company that’s pursuing DNA data storage.
The company recently announced it was partnering with Seagate to lower the
cost and complexity of its DNA systems.
Catalog has raised nearly $60 million in funding.

Researchers at Catalog have the goal of commercializing the DNA storage

process.
Some tech experts say DNA storage could be available commercially within five
years.
2. Zero-Trust Architecture Aim to Improve Data Security
In a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, two-thirds named cybersecurity as their top
business risk.
Search volume for “cybersecurity” has been steadily climbing, up more than
250% in the past 5 years.
In 2022, KPMG released a study showing that cybersecurity risks are increasing.
Nearly 85% of the business leaders in the study said they believe cyber risks are
growing and only 35% say their companies are properly protected.
When IT decision-makers were asked about the most important aspects of data
management and storage for the next three years, 61% rated data protection
and availability as one of their most important factors.
In addition, 57% said security and compliance was one of their most important
factors.

In a 2021 survey, data protection and security were ranked as the most
important factors of data management moving forward into the next three
years.
The storage security issue is likely more pressing than most businesses realize.
More than 400 high-end storage devices were analyzed in Continuity’s “The
State of Storage Security Report.”
They found that each enterprise storage device has 15 security issues on
average. Of those, three are considered high-risk issues.

In total, more than 6,300 discrete security issues were found.

Ransomware attacks have become especially prevalent.
In mid-2022, one report revealed an 80% increase in ransomware attacks year-
over-year.
The educational sector has been heavily targeted by hackers in recent years.
The Los Angeles Unified School District suffered a massive data breach in
2022 when a Russian group stole nearly 300,000 files containing sensitive data
and leaked it on the dark web.
One strategy to combat cyberattacks on data is zero-trust architecture (ZTA).
Search volume for “zero trust architecture” has skyrocketed in recent years.
This approach is different from traditional cybersecurity models in which users
can go anywhere in the network once they’re granted initial access.
In ZTA, every interaction between a network and a user is authenticated,
authorized, and validated.

ZTA models defend the network from the inside and the outside.
Because ransomware attacks are increasingly focused on backups of data,
creating immutable backups is another strategy companies are using to avoid a
data crisis.
These are clean copies of data that cannot be altered.
It works through the write-once-read-many (WORM) mechanism—as employees
upload files, they set an immutability flag that locks the files in place for a set
period of time the data is frozen for that specified duration.
Rubrik’s Zero Trust Data Protection offers a built-in immutable file system that
works with hybrid and multi-cloud data platforms.

Big-name companies like Citigroup, The Home Depot, and others protect their
data with Rubrik’s system.
Leaders at Rubrik are so confident in their data security measures that they offer
a $5 million warranty to customers.
The company’s annual recurring revenue grew 100% from 2021 to 2022.
3. Multiple Uses and Benefits of AI in Data Storage
The use of artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) is growing within data
storage systems.

Search volume for “AIOps” shows 127% growth over the past 5 years.
AI can monitor storage infrastructure and applications, as well as diagnose
problems, automate actions, and perform predictive analysis.
According to IBM, one-third of companies have already launched AIOps to
automate their IT processes.
Because AI has the capability of optimizing storage capacity and streamlining
management, companies are looking to this as a major cost-saving solution.
The platform from Cast AI manages enterprise cloud resources automatically,
generating an average savings of 63%.

Cast AI identifies workload needs and picks the optimal combination of

resources to meet those needs.
Another advantage of using AI in this way is that it releases staff members who
spend a considerable amount of time on routine or low-value tasks. Instead,
they can devote their time to tasks that create value for the business.
That’s one of the reasons why the state of Utah is extensively deploying
AIOps throughout its IT operations platform.
The state’s Department of Technology employed about 1,000 people 15 years
ago, but that number is down to 750 in 2022.
AI is also becoming a viable option for automating data center operations.
By 2025, Gartner predicts that half of all data centers will deploy robots using
AI/ML to increase efficiency by up to 30%.
As of now, AI is mostly being used to optimize cooling and predict maintenance
issues.
Industry leaders say that the technology will soon be used for security, workload
management, and power management.

AI has the potential to dramatically improve data center operations.

4. Reducing Costs of Data Storage
Companies are constantly creating data, leading to the need for more data
storage. At the same time, data storage is becoming more expensive.
Search interest in “data storage costs” continues to climb, up 205% over 5
years.
In fact, it now costs more than $3,000 to store a single terabyte of data for a
year.
Companies with extremely large amounts of data are paying even more.
Estimates show that it can cost more than $1 million to store a petabyte of data
for five years.
A 2022 report from Seagate shows that UK enterprises are spending an average
of $260,000 annually on storing and managing their own data.
In addition, they found that 90% of IT decision-makers were worried about the
rising costs of data storage.
Object storage is one cost-saving option that’s being suggested as the ideal way
to store archival data.
It’s scalable, flexible, and can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.
Plus, it’s cheap.
Deft offers object storage for $20 per terabyte per month.

Deft offers object storage with data immutability.

In one example, a global bank was spending $2 billion each year to operate 600
data repositories.
They reorganized, decommissioned some data, and saved $400 million in annual
costs.
Adoption of software-defined storage is also on the rise.
Instead of attaching storage to on-premise hardware, this approach creates a
unified pool of storage that can be managed from one interface.
This increases storage utilization and reduces overprovisioning of storage.
Data deduplication is a simple concept; it simply removes redundant data. But it
can result in substantial cost-savings.
In one case study, an engineering company needed to back up 10 terabytes of
data.
The deduplication process reduced data volume by 90%.
5. Mitigating the Environmental Impact of Data Storage
While the amount of data is steadily increasing, the energy required to store all
of the data is growing exponentially.
Both technology leaders and environmental activists are sounding the alarm.
Data centers create an enormous amount of heat and, in order for all of the tech
to continue working properly, substantial cooling must take place.
These massive air conditioning needs account for more than 40% of the
electricity used in a data center.
In addition, data centers use a large amount of energy running redundant
systems and underutilized systems.

A snapshot of a data center’s carbon footprint shows substantial budgetary

costs and environmental impact.
The most recent estimates show that the cloud is responsible for more
greenhouse gas emissions than the airline industry.

Search volume for “data center emissions” jumped in 2022.

According to an article from MIT, many data centers are switching to water-
cooled systems.
However, this comes with its own environmental costs.
Microsoft had promised they’d only use 12-20 million liters of water annually at
one Northern Holland data center, but in total, the company used 84 million
liters of water in 2021.
Similar circumstances are appearing at data centers in the United States.
In 2019, Google used 2.3 billion gallons of water for their data centers in three
states and, in 2021, they requested 1.46 billion gallons annually for a data center
near Dallas.
As much of the western United States deals with a megadrought, data center
companies are facing backlash from residents.

Residents in South Carolina have been vocal in their opposition to Google’s

water usage.
Green data storage is a trend that’s emerging now.
Data shows the market could reach $261.2 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of
19.2%.
A handful of hyperscale companies like Google and Microsoft have pledged to
be “water positive” in the near future, meaning the companies will replenish
more water than they consume.

Search volume for “water positive” is up nearly 147% over 5 years.

Microsoft’s published goal for being water-positive is 2030. The company is
working toward this goal by setting up rainwater collection systems, improving
water efficiency, and tapping into solar energy.
Meta recently invested in seven new solar power facilities to provide energy for
data centers in Georgia and Tennessee.
A few infrastructure companies are also taking dedicated steps toward green
data storage.
For example, Equinix is raising the temperature threshold at its data centers to
80° F.
The company is also exploring renewable energy options like hydrogen fuel. In
2021, they reported 95% renewable energy coverage.

Equinix aims to be climate-neutral by 2030.

Conclusion
That wraps up our list of the top five data storage trends to watch over the next
three years.
The sector is developing high-tech storage options and security measures that
aim to help businesses maximize the value of their data. AI options and
automation tools are emerging as well. For many organizations, this is the only
way IT leaders will be able to successfully manage this new workload.
However, at least two main hurdles remain: budgetary restrictions and
environmental concerns. As the volume of data continues to grow, watch for
companies to strike a balance between the business value of data and these
future costs.